First appearance: S1E11 — Gift Horse — Cosmonius v El Hada Rocha · watch it on YouTube
El Hada Rocha is a fairy luchador from The Feywild, “the champion of the peacock spirit” and servant of the Peacock God, played by DeadAussieGamer. He arrived in a skin-tight spandex suit and a feathered luchador mask, promising “all manner of feathery doom.” He spent the next two hours being punched, trampled, slapped by grandmothers and electrocuted. His fight against Cosmonius in S1E11 — Gift Horse — Cosmonius v El Hada Rocha ended as a Deathmatch with no winner: both champions died on the same final exchange.
Story
El Hada Rocha came through the Arbiter’s portal into The Dread Fortress on a night when hair was the main topic. The Grandmaster had just changed hers, and the Arbiter had not noticed. The fairy announced that he was “about as wild as the Feywilds themselves.” Then he flexed hard enough that massive rainbow dragonfly wings ripped out of the back of his suit. The Grandmaster was instantly won over by his centaur rival Cosmonius, who flattered her, but the Arbiter bet on El Hada Rocha anyway: “you can’t not trust a man who’s wearing a mask.” He tossed the fairy a coin purse with “something special” inside. El Hada Rocha tied it to his mask and dared Cosmonius to come and take it. The fight was moved “in-house,” to the Fortress’s freezing generator room, a metal platform over a long drop onto grinding gears, while The Acolytes watched from a floating grandstand on dollar hot dog night.
He opened with style. A swarm of fireflies burst from his mask to curse his opponent’s luck, and a floor tile cracked under Cosmonius’s hooves before the centaur could charge. Then El Hada Rocha spread his wings, thrust his pelvis at the sky and fired a blast of energy shaped like a giant peacock. It missed. He took to the air on a trail of turquoise fire shaped like peacock tail feathers. Cosmonius galloped in, punched him twice in the face and drew first blood. El Hada Rocha wiped purple pixie blood from his lip, called the centaur a man who “dresses like a poor person,” and breathed peacock-colored fire over him. The crowd’s chaos then turned both champions into the Arbiter’s puppets. The Arbiter used the strings to make El Hada Rocha untie the purse and drink the healing vial hidden inside. Next the Acolytes threw their grandmothers onto the field.
This is where El Hada Rocha proved that he was, above all, “a good grandson.” He put out his flames so that he wouldn’t burn anyone and offered his arm to escort a grandma to safety. She whacked him with her purse (“I can do this on my own, Sonny!”), while the grandmothers kissed, healed and fed cookies to the shirtless centaur. Cosmonius grappled him on a natural 20, swept his legs, stomped him twice and used him to mop up the fairy’s own spilled blood. The fairy answered with a stream of furious swearing in Sylvan. The Arbiter could not watch any more of this. He plucked feathers from El Hada Rocha’s mask and wove them into a nest-shaped shield as a gift. The shield caught fire, the fire spread over the fairy’s whole body, and he became an immense peacock-blue coconut crab. As the crab, he shrugged off Cosmonius’s stunning strike with a natural 20 and the line “The only thing that stuns me is your futility.” The sight of him made one grandma scream and wet her pants, while a grandpa reminisced, “I remember the first time I had crabs,” and explained that “When two people love each other, sometimes crustaceans are involved.” El Hada Rocha begged him to stop telling people about it, before the Arbiter shipped every grandparent off to a retirement home in Florida.
Back in his own form, El Hada Rocha tried his signature “Phoenix dropkick,” a spiraling flight that fired blasts from the soles of both feet like “a Gatling gun of feet.” All seven missed. The Grandmaster felt so sorry for him that she let him try again. He then knocked Cosmonius’s jaw out of alignment with a breakdance windmill kick, rode around the arena standing on the centaur’s back while holding his hair, and dropped a thunderclap on his spine. He survived a kick toward the pit only because his wings kept him aloft; at the table, Cosmonius’s player admitted he had thought they were decorative. He also turned an electrified pylon into a crackling peacock of lightning. After his own luck had failed him all night, he finally pushed his time-bending count past 88. The Arbiter declared it “Past 88 miles per hour.” In the last round, choked in a headlock under the centaur’s armpit, he slipped free on broken wings held up by blue flame. He climbed fifty feet and dove like a flaming arrow, landing a critical hit that left both champions on their last legs. They bumped fists with broken, trembling fingers. When Cosmonius threw a final jab “Like Fae!”, El Hada Rocha answered with one last burst of fire. The centaur toppled, and El Hada Rocha floated back into the metal wall, fell to his knees and pulled off his mask as he died.
The Grandmaster told the Acolytes she had no champion to give them, only the battle itself, and asked them to “Remember the names of El Hada Rocha and Cosmonius.” In his final word to the Acolytes afterward, El Hada Rocha told his supporters that true beauty lies in “your spirit and heart within, because that is where you find the true peacock god.”
Personality and Abilities
El Hada Rocha is all spectacle: tight spandex, bright hair, and a luchador mask crowned with sweeping real peacock feathers, with fireflies living inside it. His rainbow dragonfly wings later turned into blue feathers of flame. Rose tattoos cover his torso, each with a name beneath it, and he keeps an empty spot for opponents he wants to remember. He bleeds purple. He speaks Spanish, calls grandmothers “abuela,” and treats the elderly with knightly courtesy. He admits family is complicated: “Me and Poppy had a very bad relationship.” His earliest memory of his grandma is making tripitas with her.
He fights as a showman-sorcerer in the colors of the Peacock God. He fires peacock-shaped blasts, breathes fire when struck, flies on trails of turquoise flame, steps through space with a thunderclap, and twists his opponents’ luck. His wrestling and dance moves include the Phoenix dropkick, a breakdance windmill and capoeira kicks. He even used Cosmonius’s footsteps as a rhythm to dance to. With the Arbiter’s feather-nest shield he became a giant flaming coconut crab, and he showed that he could steal lightning from the machinery around him and throw it back.
Relationships
- Cosmonius: His rival from the Feywild, whom he mocked as “Glue”. The two traded insults, then earned each other’s respect, bumped fists, and killed each other on the same blow.
- The Arbiter: Bet on him because of the mask, gave him a coin purse with a healing vial, and wove him a feather shield when the fight turned against him.
- Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: Preferred Cosmonius at first, but took pity on him after his seven misses and honored both fallen champions in her eulogy.
Memorable Quotes
- “You may as well start calling yourself Glue.” (Gift Horse)
- “Abuela, it is too dangerous here. Come, I will show you to your grandson.” (Gift Horse)
- “You hit pretty well for someone who dresses like a poor person. But… the vengeance of the Peacock God is unforgiving.” (Gift Horse)
- “I apologize to all the audience for having to watch an ass on an ass.” (Gift Horse)
- “Shall we go out like men then? Put up your dukes.” (Gift Horse)
- “To you, the acolytes who supported El Hada Rocha, know that beauty is not what you put on the outside, but your spirit and heart within, because that is where you find the true peacock god.” (Gift Horse)